


if the sun refused to shine (I would still be loving you)

by etoileyoongi



Series: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan-centric, M/M, So conclusion they're:, Soulmates, The word soulmates is mentioned like once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28843287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoileyoongi/pseuds/etoileyoongi
Summary: At times Donghyuck thinks he’s not the sun as much as he’s already a supernova, just waiting to disappear into the dark nothingness while everyone else, unknowingly, basks in the light of the explosion.or: Lee Donghyuck finds he can be the sun, the night sky or just himself in the safety of Mark’s embrace.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Series: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113866
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	if the sun refused to shine (I would still be loving you)

**Author's Note:**

> this is (kind of) a part two to [_you are the sunlight in my growing (so little warmth I've felt before)_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269453/chapters/69276339) _,_ so you might want to read that one in advance. It's not totally necessary - the two stories aren't exactly follow-ups or sequels of one another, nor do they really cover the same topic, but i do tend to wander around in my writings and keep a lot of things quite vague. It happens in both of them, but reading the two stories (and preferably the other one first) might give you just a _little_ more insight (and some, if not a lot more markhyuck).
> 
> As i said, the two stories didn't end up covering the same topic as much as i originally planned, and as a result, this became much more of a character study than it was supposed to. Nonetheless, i do think this topic (the differentiation between Donghyuck/Haechan) is incredibly interesting, and i am satisfied with the result.
> 
> (if you're interested: Mark's one focuses a lot on romantic love for another & is more of a romantic story, while this one's much more about self-love and growing into yourself as a person. The two kinds of love, i suppose).
> 
> I made a playlist for the two stories (full of mostly sappy love songs, but hey, what can you do) that is linked below, at the beginning of this story. If you are someone that's into listening to music while they're reading - check it out!
> 
> Most of all, I hope you enjoy this fic. It's a lot deeper than i intended to, a lot deeper than most of my other stories, and written in a style that's fleeting, it feels like, but I love it nonetheless.

[ _**\- playlist** _ ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7dQHGcBH5F1gs5RZ50MNaF?si=RsuKHe4IQ46bGqCewFzKOg)

_If you were to close your eyes_

_and see this one moment of sunshine_

_what would that be?_

  
  


Lee Donghyuck was born the sun.

To shine, to entertain. To sing and dance and make people laugh. It’s what he’s always been doing, it’s what he will be doing until the end of time. Everyone has a purpose in life, and this is his. 

To warm up people in his light, his embrace.

At least, that’s what he’s always been told by everyone.

There are old VHS tapes of him dressed up as a knight or a dragon or a princess, anyone in the story, as long as there is a story. There are pictures of playdates where he’s standing in the middle of a circle, cheeks red and hands ever moving, the center of attention and gravity, the universe maybe. 

There are videos of him playing the main role at school play, singing his heart out, bright under the hot stage lights. There are notebooks with stories he wrote, the protagonist named Hyuckie, about adventure and fate and redemption, about himself, about a love he was destined to find. He was the main character of it all.

There are pictures of him peacefully staring at the sea, on the beach of Jeju, too, or sitting under the big oak tree in his grandparents’ garden and quietly reading a book. There is him petting a cat on the street and picking apples and being nothing but a normal child, if not a little more content, a little more smiley, but these don’t ever get shown.  
  


Because that goes against the idea that all he’s ever wanted was to perform, to be watched, the center of attention. And it’s not that they’re wrong. He likes to put on a show, at times, he likes making people laugh and letting the tension in a room dissipate by making a joke or doing a little dance. He likes being there for people, even if it’s just by elevating their mood for a little bit. It’s still something.

But he also likes listening to music and long walks on the beach and the quietness of his own bedroom at night, just him and the moon and nothing more.

The world, the people around him, his family; they all only seem to focus on this one facet of his personality, though.

Becoming a trainee is only the first step. His mom had seen the audition poster, and she rushes home over-excited and tells him - interrupting him in the middle of doing his biology homework - about the try-outs next Saturday. She looks so happy, so genuinely delighted by the idea of her son getting out there and performing, becoming an idol, and he can’t say no.

They both know he’ll get in, and so he does. He gets scheduled to enter SM two weeks later.

Be bright, his mother tells him right before he enters the big building he’ll be spending the next part of his life in and around. It was quite a long drive, all the way from Jeju, and his mom spent it raving about how it'll be perfect, how she knows they’ll love him, how he needs to be lively and happy and _bright_ , so that he’ll stand out.

Donghyuck had sunk deeper into the backseat and closed his eyes, pushed his earphones into his ears and tried to shut her babbling out for just a second, peace, quiet. Only him and the melody flowing into his head, the notes bouncing around and the bass matching the beat of his heart. When all else fails, there is still music to hold him upright.

And now they’re here, and the last thing he’ll remember of his mom is her telling him to be like the sun. He doesn’t want to let her down.

He kisses her cheek, promises her to do his utter best, holds his backpack a little tighter. He doesn’t look back as he walks into the building, just waves over his shoulder with his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him.

This is it.

(...)

He makes friends quickly. He had expected it, knows how to be social and funny and how to make people like him but, as weird as it sounds, it’s nice to know that it works here, too.

He’s loud when he enters the practice rooms for the first time, fills the room with chatter and laughter and he tries so so _so_ hard to embody the sun, to be bright and radiant, and it works. Like it always does. If all else fails, he’ll always know that he can fall back on this.

There are boys his age, and he bonds quickly with a few of them, going out of his way to seek them out during lunch and free time, until they start coming to him, inviting him to their hangouts and late-night chats. They’re nice, and he gets fond of them quite quickly, especially the two he ends up sharing his room with - Jaemin and Jeno. After that, it’s mostly the three of them.

Still, the two of them have been friends for a much longer time, know each other a lot better, and he tries to ignore it, but his heart aches at the inside jokes he’s not in on yet and fleeting looks that are enough for the two of them to communicate.

With time, as he gets closer to them, spending hours at the practice rooms with Jaemin and secretly going out for ice cream with Jeno, it doesn’t hurt anymore.

There are elders, his hyungs, who are nice and responsible and tell him to shower and bring him lunch and, sometimes, even physically drag him to bed when he gets too lost in everything, the only thing on his mind not to let anyone down. It’s nice to feel cared for, and whenever he misses home he cuddles up to them a little closer on the couch, a little more quiet and a little less radiant, and even if they notice, they never mention it.

He likes Taeyong, and Jaehyun, _loves_ Johnny and Doyoung (they fight, but he loves it, cherishes it. Looks forward of this little tug-o’-war of words and funny faces), and even Ten, though the latter seems to be genuinely annoyed by him more often than not. He’s the first one that makes it so obvious, and it hurts, so he tries to avoid him a lot of the time. With how busy they are, with vocal training and practices and life, it’s easy.

(As he grows up, matures, and Ten does too, it gets better. Eventually they fall into a dynamic that they both genuinely feel comfortable with, and it feels like a bigger accomplishment than it should be, probably.)

Then, there is Mark Lee. 

(...)

Mark Lee is Canadian, and awkward and quiet but also confident, a teenager like him but already so much more formed by the world and its people and by the industry. Donghyuck doesn’t know why, but he takes a liking to him immediately. It’s just that he sometimes, to some people, expresses that by annoying them. And Mark is _so_ easy to annoy. And he doesn’t mean to, but it seems like just Donghyuck’s presence, just him being around already irritates him, exasperates him to the point of them not being able to be alone in a room without it being filled with an atmosphere so tense and uncomfortable one of them has to flee it, in the end.

Donghyuck tries and tries, is pushed by other people to go back over and over again ( _do it for the image, the camera if nothing else)_ , and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s no help that they’re always placed together, doesn’t help that they’re teenagers with hormones raging through their bodies and frustrations building up at the littlest of things.

(The hours spent backstage at the Mickey Mouse Club are some he doesn’t ever want to go back to again, maybe even more so than the ones spent on stage singing stupid songs while wearing candy-coloured shorts.)

(They have to seperate them to the point of the two of them getting their make-up done in different rooms. Years later, a make-up artist he knew back then makes a remark on the full 180 that occured over the years, and he’s both embarrassed and giddy about it.)

(Much, much later. For now, it’s hard, rough or so so soft and there’s nothing in between.)

(...)

He knows what’s expected of him the moment he gets the stage name Haechan. It’s painfully obvious that they’re labeling him - putting him in a box - as much as everyone else does, his family and school peers and the other trainees. He knows the front he has to put on from now on. It’s not even that bad, most of the time. He’s been doing it for so long that it doesn’t matter anymore, and somehow, maybe, it’s freeing that he gets to name this part of him, distance it from the rest of Lee Donghyuck. A separation between him and the stage, kind of. 

And so he nods, smiles, coos about how much he loves it and he sees them musing to themselves about how well they did, choosing that name, being almost unreasonably proud about it, and he thinks _you know nothing about me_.

It’s just- it’s not that he dislikes it. He likes being friendly, being radiant, being adored by everyone surrounding him, even if it comes with rolls of the eyes and fonds huffs of annoyance. He’s fully aware that the way he acts influences the way people treat him, how far people go to cater for him, how much people seek him out.

One day, he wakes up with a headache, and he decides that he just can’t uphold the front that day, too tired and out of it. During the day, multiple other trainees approach him, ask him if there’s something wrong, because he doesn’t laugh, doesn’t cling or joke around and that feels wrong, like there’s a shift in the universe because he isn’t there to fill the spot in the middle of it all, isn’t there to hold it together.

Taeyong squints at him worriedly, gives him a bag of his favourite gummies, and the frown deepens when Donghyuck can’t will himself to jump up and down and scream, gloat about it to the people around them, like he’s supposed to do.

Johnny takes him into the bathrooms, tells him he’s not being himself with a hand on his shoulder and a composed, tight smile on his face, one Donghyuck knows he uses when he’s not actually sure what to do, when it’s out of his control (one he has perfected over the years of people deciding for him and over his personality and body and everything). Donghyuck doesn’t have the heart to tell him that this _is_ himself, at least sometimes.

It’s Mark Lee, of all people, who doesn’t crowd him or tries to fix him, who instead just sits down next to him, lets him rest his heavy, painful head on his shoulder for just this one time without pulling away. He doesn’t talk, just hums softly, and Donghyuck can’t help but be thankful for him, a feeling that’s both so foreign and so right.

(...)

He falls in love with that same Mark Lee when he’s 15 and the rumors for their debut are getting louder and louder, until they’re confirmed for once and all.

He’s back to being Haechan, too, most of the time, back to being bubbly and obnoxious, loud, annoying. He bothers Mark, partly because he likes to, partly because he’s expected to, at this point. They’re put together for shows and work a lot, something about their dynamics doing well on camera, something about the idea of two utterly different personalities clashing that is apparently funny.

To the outside world, they’re friends, somewhat, somehow. Their bantering is seen as cute, boys being boys, a younger brother annoying the older one he looks up to.

He does look up to Mark, in a way. The boy carries himself through life like a wave rolling onto the shore. Composed and sure of itself, a quiet and ever-occurring presence, admired by everyone around.

He is what he is, does what he does, likes what he likes, unapologetic, and it’s okay because he’s Mark Lee. He likes watermelons and bad 90’ rap and cat memes and objectively those don’t fit the image SM tries to push onto him, but none of it matters, it’s just accepted as him being quirky and authentic and himself.

Donghyuck should hate him for it, and a little part of him does, but he is also so happy for him, for his friend ( _maybe, when the stars shine down on them just the right way)_ because as much as people like to think otherwise, he’s not one to hold a grudge, too thoughtful and genuinely kind in a way he can’t always show.

He’s starting to, though, when someone smiles right or touches him sweetly, comfortingly, and he knows it’s okay to be gentle in return, without getting judged for it.

It’s when he realises it’s almost always Mark that it sinks in there is love mixed in somewhere in there.

(...)

Then they debut, together 24/7, all day and every day. There’s still looks filled to the brim with annoyance being shot his way and him being pushed off just a little too roughly for it to be meant in a playful way, and he doesn’t like it as much anymore when he’s rejected for the nth time that day, week, lifetime, but then he looks at the people behind the camera, at their awaiting, piercing eyes and the way the lens focuses on the two of them, and he knows he has to go in again, knows that it’ll be worth it and this too shall pass, for something that’s much more real, much sweeter.

Because they work better when he’s not Haechan. There are nights on the couch when they’re quietly watching a movie, not close enough to touch, but they’re in the same space and breathing the same air and it’s enough. There are long conversations early in the morning when they watch the world wake up, about being an idol and friendships and whether they believe in soulmates or not.

(They do. They are.)

Backstage, when he’s tired and dozing off on the couch, on the verge of sleep, he sometimes finds himself nodding off on a soft shoulder, surrounded by the smell of fresh laundry and axe and just a hint of watermelon.

It starts to feel like home.

(...)

When Johnny asks him to go a little softer on Mark, Donghyuck sees red.

Johnny is like his big brother, someone he looks up to, protective and always right. They’re close, and the first thing that goes through his mind at Johnny’s words is _how fucking dare he ruin this friendship._ He knows it’s silly, but he’s suddenly so, so, so convinced that it’s all a big ploy Mark has been planning to separate the two of them, so he can take Johnny from him.

But then he thinks about them standing in the bathroom the evening before, singing to some girl group pop song that was playing on the radio, taking a bath together in their swimwear (because they’re seventeen and shy and growing into their bodies, but life still is an adventure and you have to take a chance) and he thinks about Mark playing the guitar to him, nimble fingers and bright eyes, shining in a way that’s too gentle to resemble the sun, much milder like the moon, a smile like the stars directed at him and only him.

And he thinks about Johnny’s and Marks dates out to the Han River, where they drink bad coffee and talk in English, about their life and their childhood and their experiences. They practice their rapping together, watch cheesy American soap series because there’s jokes in there that you can only understand if you’ve lived there, apparently.

And he realizes that Mark wouldn’t do something like that, wouldn’t have to do something like that because he has his own relationship with Johnny, built on familiarity and the feeling of being foreign in what’s supposed to be your home. 

Johnny’s eyes are pleading, and it’s suddenly so obvious that this is _him_ asking this, because he and the other members don’t see them as they really are, light touches of comfort and legs intertwined and a two voices and a guitar and fondness and _love_ , the soft and innocent, everlasting kind of love.

Because they, Lee Donghyuck and Mark Lee share a last name and a dream and a heart.

(...)

(He promises to do his best, and he probably seems genuine enough, because that’s the end of the conversation. Johnny walks in on them, asleep, sharing a bed, two months later, and he understands. They all eventually do).

(...)

Life passes by, and where he used to be scared of the future and the unknown, he’s not anymore. It’s different, everything is.

He’s growing more into himself with time, allowing himself to be subdued at times, quiet nights and early mornings where he wakes up to be alone. He’s more thoughtful, less obnoxious at times where he knows he can be.

It’s like with Mark beside him, a soothing presence telling him it’ll be okay, he can be not the sun or a supernova, but himself. 

Lee Donghyuck does not embody Haechan as much as Haechan is just a part of him, and he’s still growing into himself, but he has a lifetime in front of him and a boy holding his hand to learn all about it.

**Author's Note:**

> If the ending seemed kind of rushed and unfinished - that's because it is. Partly as a stylistic choice, because Donghyuck is still growing into himself and into Haechan, still learning to balance the two, and that will probably take a lot more time, and patience, and love. I had said everything i wanted to say, so it felt okay to end it like that, instead of making it drag on and on.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please make sure to leave kudo's and maybe a comment? I'd love to hear people's thoughts and insights on this analysis, especially because I feel like it's widely acknowledged and/or accepted that Donghyuck is the literal personification of the sun, in all ways, always. So if you feel like that, or the opposite, or think i didn't portray him that well, or maybe i did, write me down below.
> 
> Thank you for reading this piece!


End file.
